


White Star

by kalypsobean



Category: Tales of Graces
Genre: Growing Up, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Separations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-14
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-20 20:05:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4800536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard grew up knowing Asbel was out there, a man who shone brightly and could never be the perfect friend he remembered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moontyger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moontyger/gifts).



Richard has known a lot of people in his life, and most of them have wanted something from him. It hasn't always been something he could give, or that he wanted to share; some of them wanted his life, after all, and that of his father. Some of them wanted favour, though not all of them asked for it directly. They schemed around him, or found ways to net his attention, or simply behaved in a way that they thought would earn them a reward, though they had not necessarily consulted on it first.

Richard has not had many chances to be alone, and he has not had many people he could call friends. He has people he thinks he can trust, and people who do not want anything from him but for him to do his best. Sometimes, they overlap; often, they do not last, either lying in wait until he is sufficiently misled about their nature, or their needs drive them to seek something they did not previously desire. There are few who do not ask, or offer him far more than he is able to give.

 

When he was younger, when things started to move beyond his father's control, though he didn't quite understand that at the time, he was sent away. There was a boy, then, and his brother and his friends. He had been told to stay away, and Richard himself had tried to send him away, but the boy had declared them friends and saved his life, and then been angry when Richard tried to repay him. Richard had not been allowed to see him again, though he tried; it had to be enough that he was out there, then, that someone existed who was loyal and swore friendship expecting only the same in return, without trading on it.

 

Richard sometimes had to remind himself that Asbel was not the perfect boy that existed in his memories; Asbel had been rebellious, Asbel had shown him how to sneak out of the manor, Asbel had disobeyed his father. Richard had been allowed none of those things, for though he knew the catacombs as his playground and the ways in and out of the castle, he was watched too closely to truly escape.

Richard felt that he had never been young, or allowed to be free.

 

There was something inside him, since he met Asbel; it was like a burning in his veins, a thing that pounded beneath his skin and wanted out. It raged, sometimes, and he could not hold it in; he spoke words vicious and bloodthirsty, venting the anger so it did not tear him apart before he could let anyone down, and he liked the way it buzzed when he learned to wield a rapier and how to dance lightly over the ground as if it was a performance and not a battle, where the stakes were only the exhilaration of an audience and not the lives of one or many or all. He learned to watch those who watched him, waiting, and how to know when they would strike.

Asbel was out there, learning to be a knight, but Richard never heard from him.

It was probably best, Richard had thought, because the thing inside him almost seemed like it yearned for Asbel as much as he did; it wanted to take something pure and strong and true and turn it against the world and then, together, they would watch it burn, until the names in the tree on Lhant Hill were blackened marks in smouldering ash, and the slightest touch would see them crumble and fall into the sea below. Asbel had woken it, perhaps. 

 

Richard wished he could be like Asbel, and when the thing was quiet he worked for it; he remembered how Asbel looked out for Hubert and Cheria not because they were smaller but because he loved them, and how he had looked after Sophie and fought to keep her with him even though he didn't know her. He could do that for the whole of Windor, when it was his time, and then Asbel would be proud. Asbel would be at his side. The thing would go away when Asbel was there, soothed by his presence like a reptile bathing in the sun, slow and lazy and warm, still. 

 

It was only when he was older, almost as old as he is now, that he named the feelings that came with the memory of Asbel; how his heart raced and the thing reached up as if it could claw through his skin, how he couldn't stay still and his mouth went dry, and how he thought that if only he could reach out and touch Asbel, he would never let go. If Asbel were close, both he and the thing would be sated, though he did not know where his own wanting ended, if it did at all. Somehow, it had twisted him from wanting Asbel's friendship, from wanting to be like Asbel and to earn that loyalty, to needing more. It was more than validation, and more than a base need, a fixation that, like the phases of the moon, would pass. Asbel was a bright light that tried valiantly to keep away the darkness and untwist the core of Richard's soul, what left of it there was. 

If he did not know Asbel was out there, Richard is not sure he would have survived.

 

And now his father is dead, and he is running from his uncle. The number of people he trusts is now so small he can count it without needing to write anything down to remind him who has already been counted. Asbel is first, and Richard thinks, allowing himself a moment of folly, that if Asbel were here, things would work out; his exile would not last, and his home would be peaceful again. The thing is enraged; it wants to lash out, and it has words, so close to the surface that Richard thinks he can hear it speaking, as if the need to destroy Cedric and feel blood on his hands is not his own. _Let me in,_ it says. _Let me do this._

 _Yes,_ he thinks. _I want this. He should pay._

 

And then, like a candle has been lit in the distance, he sees a blur of white; he sees Asbel, and he knows that somehow, things will be right again. Asbel will see to it, for Asbel is like a star, and as long as Richard looks to him, he will never be lost.


End file.
